~ COMMON SCHOOLS 


CS. 


UNIVERSITY 


Byek LPeCRANE 


CHICAGO 
1911 


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is Library 
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COMMON SCHOOLS 


VS. 


UNIVERSITY 


To THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE: 


I appreciate that a member of the legislature is a very busy 
man, so am I; therefore I shall make my plea as brief as the 
facts and the importance of the subject permit. 

You have before you bills appropriating upward of $5,000,- 
000 for the University (what the Committee on Appropriations 
may recommend I do not know), and another bill appropriating 
$4,500,000 to the common-school fund. The burden of taxation 
is already so great that both of these are impossible. So the 
- question comes — where should the money to be spent for edu- 
cational purposes go? To the University, where less.than two 
per cent of the boys and girls will ever go, or to the elementary 
schools, where over ninety per cent of the boys and girls will 
receive all the education they will ever get? 

Ordinarily the greatest good to the greatest number should 
settle that question. To change that rule the advocates of 
wasting money upon higher schooling and starving the elemen- 
tary schools to that extent must show that higher schooling is 
worth to the public what it costs, and that the elementary 
schools are not being injured by the lavish outlay of money 
for the University —this they can not do. 

Personally, I believe that the higher schooling of to-day is 
worthless, so far as ninety per cent of those who receive it are 
concerned. I say this after making a painstaking investiga- 
tion, and after careful consideration. Of course, I have no 
objection to people having this higher schooling, if they get it 
as they get any other gew-gaw — by paying for it. My conten- 
tion is that when anything of so little value is furnished by the 
State and at such an enormous expense, it is detrimental to 

other parts of our educational system. 


Our University was founded to give training in “such 
branches of learning as’are related to agriculture and the 
mechanic arts.”’ It was organized primarily to make educated 
farmers. In this respect it has wholly failed, as my investiga- 
tions among the farmers in the vicinity of the University show. 
It has taken up every “ ology” and “ism,” and throughout its. 
whole existence has educated a thousand boys away from the 
farm to every one that it has educated to remain on the farm. 
It has utterly failed in its mission. | 

Realizing its failure it has aimed to hide it by pretending to 
train for every other calling under the sun. Its presumptuous 
claims are considered in the article enclosed herewith. Within 
a comparatively few years it has again made a frenzied attempt 
to make farmers by getting the boys away from the farm, 
filling their heads with a lot of stuff that bears no relation to 
successful, practical farming. The whole training is given 
under conditions as far from those of the average farmer as 
possible. They seem to forget that one learns farming from 
observing the best farmers under average conditions, not from 
books, finely spun theories and costly experiments. 

Again, the agricultural college claims that the farmers are 
deficient in the running of their farms, yet admits that it is 
doing nothing in the way of issuing general instructions direct- 
ing the farmers how to operate their farms to the best advan- 
tage, and that it has never taken a farm and operated it for the 
purpose of demonstrating what it is capable of producing under 
what might be termed scientific or intelligent farming, which 
would be the natural and businesslike method if the college 
possessed any information of value to the farmers. It further 
confesses that the best demonstrations of good farming are 
those that are being made on thousands of successful farms 
throughout the State. This goes right to the bottom of this 
whole question. The college made these admissions in a letter 
to me. 

When it has achieved any results it has failed to put them in 
a language which the farmers can understand. A county 
superintendent thus describes the value of its “literature”’: 

“The farmer needs a college course in general and a short 
course in agriculture in particular, that he may read the ‘lit- 
erature.’ Then, with the aid of the Century Dictionary and 


Encyclopedia Britannica for reference, he may get a little 
information.” 


4 


It has failed to show that the application of its principles on 
an average farm can produce results. The average farmer 
must pay the interest on the value of his farm before he can 
get any return for his own labor. Were these “ college” farm- 
ers to take a farm, and by their methods increase the income, it 
no doubt would encourage better methods; but instead, they 
operate on the same plan as the gentleman farmer, the man 
who has a farm on which to spend money which he has made in 
some other business. 

The farmers as a class do not favor agricultural schools. 
The county clerks of Illinois and surrounding States furnished 
me the names of 464 representative farmers in the vicinity of 
the agricultural schools, and who should be most conversant 
with their value—if they have any. One hundred and sixty- 
three replied in whole or in part to my questions; 41 pro- 
nounced the colleges beneficial, but gave no reason; 54 were 
favorable and gave reasons; 68 said they had no value. Those 
who favor the colleges do so because they believe they are dis- 
seminators of useful information. Like myself they place 
little or no value on the agricultural college as a place where 
boys may be taught practical farming. 

This view is corroborated by these facts: Of the 68 who 
said they had not been benefited by the agricultural colleges, 
9 said they had employed college graduates on their farms and 
that they had all proved to be unsatisfactory. Of the 95 who 
are favorable to agricultural colleges, 11 have employed such 
help and 3 pronounce it unsatisfactory. Only forty per cent 
of all those employed: were satisfactory. Since so few —20 
out of 163 — employed this kind of help, the others must have 
a very poor opinion of it. Only 5 out of the 95 who are in 
favor of the agricultural colleges have sent their children to 
them. Among those unfavorable three sent their children, and 
in two cases they report that the result was not satisfactory. 
Is it not strikingly inconsistent that so few of those who favor 
these colleges have employed their graduates or have sent their 
children to the colleges? 

Less than sixty per cent of the farmers feel that because of 
the experiment station work the college is beneficial. From the 
number who employed college-trained help or sent their chil- 
dren to the colleges, it is evident that ninety per cent consider 
the agricultural school proper of no account. 


5 


The agricultural college, thus far at least, has been the 
fifth wheel to the farmer’s wagon, and it has cost hima pretty 
penny to keep it going. Until the farmer or the agricultural 
college can show definite and really valuable results coming 
from the agricultural education of the day, common sense and 
sound business judgment demand that it be discontinued. 


THE UNIVERSITY COSTS TOO MUCH. 


The aim of our University seems to be to butld up a big 
plant and make a splurge. If these enormous expenditures are 


necessary, how is it that the small colleges can give equally as_ ~ 


good training, and sometimes better, with low tuition fees and 
a meager endowment. Our extravagance knows no bounds. 
The agricultural college is a shining example of extravagance 
run mad. 

I notice that it is asking you for a $40,000 cow barn, a 
$40,000 horse barn, a $100,000 judging pavilion, a $12,000 
dairy investigation barn, a $15,000 sheep building and so forth. 
Why not build these buildings of marble, have them steam- 
heated and with private bathrooms for each animal? A suc- 
cessful farmer could build substantial and satisfactory build- 
ings for all the horses, cattle and sheep kept by the University 


for $10,000 or less, while the University proposes to spend 


twenty times that amount. Is this waste calculated to breed in 
the students habits of economy and thrift and to make them 
satisfied with the conditions under which they must work at 
home? Such waste of the people’s money amounts to criminal. 
carelessness; but this is not the worst feature. 


THE MAINTENANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY: ROBS THE RURAL AND 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 


The University has been built up at the expense of the coun- 
try and elementary schools. People will spend about so much 
for education. This is especially true of the farmers. If you 
spend the larger part of this upon the University then the coun- 
try schools will suffer to that extent. The present local rate of 
taxation is considered burdensome. The people will not add 
anything to it. If the general taxes are increased to provide 
for the University in the lavish manner asked for, it will mean 
that the farmer will make a further cut in the money for his 
own school. But if all the money which the State proposes to 


6 


expend for education is added to the common-school fund, he 
will not cut his local tax but will use this extra money to pro- 
vide his children with better teachers and better school condi- 
tions generally. This has been the experience of other States. 

Let us not forget that ninety per cent of all the boys and 
girls are going to receive all the education they get in these 
same elementary schools. If we are going to do anything for 
them we must do it through these schools. That they are now 
in serious need of more money is only too apparent. 


Says one County Superintendent: 


“It is no secret that we are a long, long way from the ideal 
country school, and the reason can be expressed in one word — 
neglect. In the past, and it is largely true to-day, the country 
school has been neglected by all who should have given it their 
fostering care. But neglect of the country school by State and 
educators is trivial compared with the almost criminal neglect 
of it by the farmers themselves. To one who hasn’t seen it it is 
inconceivable. 

“The farmers have been niggardly in providing for their 
schools. They have increased their school year and its require- 
ments just enough to get their share of State money, and they 

have searched far and wide in their efforts to get, not the best, 
but the cheapest teachers. The schoolhouses have been 
neglected in a manner to bring the blush of shame to any self- 
respecting citizen.” 


He thus pictured a country teacher: 


“Her speech was ungrammatical, her preparation having 
extended but little beyond the completion of the course of study 
she was now trying to teach. I never saw any one who was 

working more earnestly, according to the light she had. She 
drove three miles each morning, took care of her horse, dug 
the wood from the snow, built her fire and swept —as far as 
possible—and for six hours strove to make those girls and 
boys into efficient citizens. Then she drove home to prepare 

®her lessons for the morrow. And for these services, properly 
and faithfully rendered in educating future presidents, she 
received the munificent sum of $27.50 a month, a yearly salary 
of $192.50;” 


and continues: 


“The farmer has the poorest school when he should have 
had the best, because he can have the best for the least money. 
He has no expensive site or building to purchase and maintain. 
He can put practically all his money into a teacher. 

“ Theoretically, the farmer believes very strongly in educa- 
tion; practically, he doesn’t, for what to him seem very good 


7 


reasons. He does not take kindly to giving his boy a university 
education and having him drift off to the city, there to con- 
tribute his brawn, his brain, his honesty, to the city’s cause and 
accumulate but little money, while his neighbor’s son whose 
education did not exceed beyond the fifth grade, has remained 
on the farm and accumulated his share of this world’s goods. 
If every time a boy secures an education he is lost to his parents 
and the farm, the farmer naturally concludes that education is 
to blame. Between an ignorant boy on the farm and an 
educated boy away from the farm, he prefers the former. 

“What is the result? Not to exceed forty per cent of the 
country children reach the sixth grade, and only one-third of 
those who enter this grade complete the course. It is entirely 
safe to say the efficiency of our country-school plant is not more 
than fifty per cent of what it should be, because of irregular 
attendance. Half of what we spend is wasted.” 


Speaking of the county schools of Cook County, Dr. A. F. 
Nightingale has said: 


“There are still so-called school buildings in Cook County, 
as I presume in every county, which would make neither good 
sheepfolds nor excellent dog-kennels. They are antiquated, 
shabby, shop-worn, obsolescent and obsolete. They never were 
fit dwelling places for human bodies or human souls for six 
hours ina day. Many schools are without supplementary read- 
ing, without libraries, without maps, without charts, without 
well-chosen, well-graded and uniform text-books, without any- 
thing to encourage, to uplift or inspire. Is it any wonder that 
only the inexperienced and incompetent or, in other words, the 
mediocre among teachers, will accept these positions, and that 
they seldom remain in one place more than one season ? 

“If the farmers or the men in any kind of business who 
hire teachers should till their fields and manage their affairs as 
they supervise the schools, they would reap in the autumn time 
less than they sowed in the springtime, and the balance on their 
ledgers at the close of the year would be on the wrong side.” 


Speaking of the country children he asks: 


“Why is it that the schools that they attend, with notable 
exceptions, seem to repress rather than impress, to dull rather 
than sharpen their wits, and to leave them at the end of the 
year with the merest modicum of interesting and profitable 
knowledge? There are many reasons and, sad to say, potent 
reasons.” ; 


In his last report are these words: 


“Labor as one may, counsel as we do, instruct as we 
please, protest, persuade, plead and pray, the results are unsat- 
isfactory. There are notable exceptions, but in general we 
found and still find these schools in a deplorable condition. 


8 


Whether we consider them from a material or a teaching point 
of view, there is little to commend and much to condemn. Over 
many may be written truthfully now, ‘ Let him who enters here, 
leave hope behind.’ ”’ 


The State Superintendent of Schools has stated that the 
State would be better off if five hundred of these rural schools 
were closed for the reason that the teachers are so inefficient 
they are incapable of teaching. That practically means that 
the people in these districts are not getting any education. 

I asked the County Superintendent, quoted above, to what 
he attributed the deplorable condition of the country schools at 
present. His answer was: 


“We have been so busy building, maintaining and blindly 
worshiping the so-called higher institutions of learning that we 
have forgotten the schools for the masses, the school of our 
fathers, the school where the real men, ‘the live wires,’ of 
to-day laid the foundation of their careers. We have lavished 
money upon our great universities, dealt liberally with our high 
OS and have been miserly in our treatment of the country 
- school.” 


In the cities the schoolrooms are overcrowded. Teachers 
are too few; their wages are too low, while a great many chil- 
dren are forced to go to work and earn a living, not even being 
able to take advantage of the limited school opportunities 
offered them. Would it not be better to use the money we have 
been in the habit of squandering upon higher education to pro- 
vide better and more teachers at living salaries, better mate- 
rial equipment, yea, even make some arrangement by which the 
’ child who must work to earn a living, could be paid the pittance 
which his labor brings and sent to school? 

The University and the Agricultural College are unneces- 
sary. Allin the way of education that is necessary for a farm 
lad to have to make him a successful, up-to-date farmer could 
be given in the schools of the country districts at but a trifling 
additional increase of the present common-school tax. Let 
every district school have a good teacher of manual training 
and elementary mechanics for the boys, and a good teacher of 
the domestic arts — cooking, sewing, etc., for the girls — and 
the taxpayer would be getting something worth while for the 
small added tax. Let this be done well first. Make the founda- 
tion sound and broad. 

Surely it is vastly more important to teach farmers how to 


9 


take care of themselves than to teach them how to fatten cattle, 
feed horses and raise hogs. Teach the farm boys and girls in 
the common schools how to make better and more comfortable 
homes, how to do better cooking, how to use their heads and 
hands to much more general advantage. Teach them more of 
these simple, practical, needful things, and no one need worry 
about their learning all the pravee agriculture they require 
right on the farm. 

I wish here to repeat that I am not opposed to education, 
but only to its useless and extravagant frills and fads. I am 
most decidedly a champion of that education which, first, aids 
aman in earning a livelihood, and so contributes to his own 
happiness; and second, makes of him a good citizen, and thus 
contributes to the happiness of others. The education the 
farmer needs to meet both of these essentials he should get in 
the country common schools. His practical education he may 
get best—in fact, only—on the farm. If he feels that he 
wants more than this he should not expect the public to pay 
for it. 

The same general principles apply to the residents of the 
cities and villages. What their children need they should get 
in the elementary schools; anything more they should pay for 
themselves. 

It affords me no pleasure to call your attention to the defi- 
cliencies in cur elementary schools, but as one interested in real 
education I deem it my duty to do so. I appeal to you to spend 
every dollar upon these neglected schools of the masses. The : 
perpetuity of the State depends upon the masses, not upon the 
few, and every child should have an opportunity to attend 
school and to secure as good an Clem en iaey education as can bé 
given. — 

I appea! to you in behalf of those who believe that our pres- 
ent higher schooling is an extravagance in which the State has 
no moral right to engage. J appeal to you in behalf of the over- 
worked and underpaid teachers in the common schools. In 
behalf of the boys and girls who must be content with a com-_ 
mon-school education or less, I appeal to you. to make these 
schools what they should be. Until then I appeal to you to 
spend millions for the common schools, but not one cent for 
higher schooling. 3 


Yours truly, R. T CRANE. 


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